It's here! Sale season that is. It's officially upon us. Next weekend is my first cattle sale of the year, and from there, it just gets crazy! It's going to be an exciting few weeks around here. We've got a lot of work left to do. Most of this week has been spent finishing things up for the Ohio Shorthorn Association's Fall Showcase Sale. The catalog should be available online tomorrow. There are 52 lots in this year's sale and some really high quality cattle have been added to the offering this year. It's lining up to be an exciting event at the new sale location.

Form to Function is just two weeks away tomorrow. I saw the cattle at BSG again this past weekend and they look very good. Looks like everything is bred as cataloged and the cattle have really fleshed up on just the good grass they've had in eastern Indiana this summer. There have been a wealth of phone calls and catalog requests for this offering, and as well as the cattle have performed for last year's buyers, I'm sure we'll have a lot of the same customers back for this year's sale.

Fenton Show Cattle's annual club calf sale is next weekend. Check out the calves at www.fentonshowcattle.com and give me a call if you have questions.

And last but certainly not least The Wanted Show Steer & Heifer Sale is really coming together this week. I pictured a few more of the consignments this weekend and have to get an ad ready to go in The Show Circuit tomorrow. Look for details and info on the sale at www.thewantedsale.com this weekend.

Almost forgot - if you need gilts - 330 Livestock & Royal Crown - The Production Sale is online Thursday, Sept. 8 - Selling 18 Yorkshire, Hampshire and crossbred females. A very nice set - call if you have questions.

Great news from the Indiana State Fair yesterday! Our steer, Meatball, was Champion Shorthorn and 4th overall in the Junior Steer Show at the state fair! Congratulations to the Martin Family for a great job. (They also showed the Reserve Grand Champion Steer.) Thanks to Rick Jarrett and Tony Morris for facilitating this great opportunity for me and thanks to Brian Goettemoeller for buying old "Meaty" in The Wanted Sale last year!

The Wanted Show Steer and Heifer Sale is Saturday, Oct. 3, 2009 at the Double J Cattle Facility in Elwood, Ind. BE THERE!

I'm really excited about today's barrow show at the Ohio State Fair. The Markley family from W. Salem, Ohio is showing a hampshire barrow we raised - and he's probably the best barrow we've ever had at the state fair! Wish us luck today - could get exciting!

Just made it back to Columbus tonight to the Ohio State Fair Barrow and Steer shows this weekend. We are in charge of a neat project in the swine barn this year. In order to raise some additional funds to help secure the future of the Ohio State Fair Swine shows, we sold several sponsorships of this year's OSF Swine Barn. Both rings were sponsored. The North ring by Tom Moyer and Family and the South ring by Cutting Edge Showpig Sires.

In addition to contributing to the junior fair fund, funds from these sponsorships were used to create a video presentation that will run throughout the barrow show this weekend. Each class placing, the class in the ring, class on deck and other information will be displayed on four video screens located at each corner of the arena. It's not a bad setup, and I think it will be very well received by the exhibitors and spectators alike. Check it out while you're at the fair this weekend!

I always said that I wouldn't use my media to express my social, political, etc. views. I am going to do it anyway.

This morning I spent 45 minutes at the post office. I needed to pick up a package that should have been left by my postman, but he refuses to get out of his car to leave large items and prefers that I take time to drive eight miles to town to pick them up myself.

I was third in line when I arrived. There were at least three front desk workers on duty and only one at the desk serving customers. There was actually a period of time where no one was at the desk for 10 minutes. When I was finally served there were 12 customers in line and four more customers had walked in, waited a piece and walked back out.

If I ran my business this way, I'd be out of work.

I'll give the post office this much credit. I do think that the mail system we have is amazing. How we can drop something in a box on one side of the country and have it arrive in a timely manner on the other side of the country - at the right location - astounds me.

Still, as I think about this morning's experience, I wonder what it will be like if the government takes over our health care. If they do, I think you can multiply the wait, the lines, the ever rising expense and ever declining service to arrive at an estimation of what that experience would be like - AWFUL times ten! Or maybe worse! And think about the transition period - what a disaster that would be!

I am not sure there has ever been a more important time for all of us to become involved with our government. Regardless of what you believe, things are changing - and they are changing fast. It's high time we all say our piece. This issue or the hundreds of others that concern our country right now - animal rights, government spending, corporate bailouts, education, health care - whatever the issue - it is going to effect us directly. What we have now is a government focused on making change - so we all need to start making our opinions count and make sure that the changes they make are good ones.

That's it. I am off my soapbox and out of political commentary - I'll leave this to the experts from now on. Have a great afternoon.